Henry Leyvas, twenty, worked on his father’s ranch.

Chepe Ruiz, eighteen, a fine amateur athlete, wanted to play big league baseball. In May, 1942, his head had been cracked open by the butt of a policeman's gun when he had been arrested on “suspicion of robbery,” although he was later found not guilty of the charge. In San Quentin Prison, where he and the others were sent after their conviction in the Sleepy Lagoon case, Ruiz won the admiration of the warden, the prison staff, and the inmates when he continued on in a boxing match after several of his ribs had been broken.

Robert Telles, eighteen, was working in a defense plant at the time of his arrest. Like many Mexican youngsters on the east side, he had remarkable skill as a caricaturist and amused his co-defendants during the trial by drawing caricatures of the judge, the jury, and the prosecutor.

Manuel Reyes, seventeen, had joined the Navy in July, 1942, and was awaiting induction when arrested.

Angel Padilla, one of the defendants most severely beaten by the police, was a furniture worker.

Henry Ynostrosa, eighteen, was married and the father of a one-year-old girl. He had supported his mother and two sisters since he was fifteen.

Manuel Delgado, nineteen, also a woodworker, was married and the father of two children, one born on the day he entered San Quentin Prison.

Gus Zamora, twenty-one, was also a furniture-worker.

Victor Rodman Thompson, twenty-one, was an Anglo youngster who, by long association with the Mexican boys in his neighborhood, had become completely Mexicanized.

Jack Melendez, twenty-one, had been sworn into the navy before his arrest. When a dishonorable discharge came through after his conviction, he said it was “like kicking a guy when he's down.”

John Matuz, twenty, had worked in Alaska with the U.S. Engineers.

These, then, were the “criminals,” the “baby gangsters,” the “murderers” who provided Los Angeles with a Roman holiday of sensationalism, crime-mongering, and Mexican-baiting.

Carey McWilliams. North from Mexico, 1948.